Vanishing Point
'' |image= |series= |production=40358-036/210 |producer(s)= |story= |script= Rick Berman and Brannon Braga |director= David Straiton |imdbref=tt0572265 |guests=Keone Young as Hoshi's Father, Gary Riotto as Alien #1, Ric Sarabia as Alien #2, Moran Margolis as Crewman Baird and Carly Thomas as Alison |previous_production=Singularity |next_production=Precious Cargo |episode=ENT S02E10 |airdate=27 November 2002 |previous_release=Singularity |next_release=Precious Cargo |story_date(s)=Unknown (2152) |previous_story=Singularity |next_story=Precious Cargo }} =Summary= Ensign Sato and Commander Tucker are on an away mission, taking pictures and gathering data and samples from an ancient set of ruins. Their mission is cut short, however, when a diamagnetic storm approaches, but before they can make it back to the shuttlepod they are forced to use the transporter instead. Sato is reluctant to use it, so Tucker goes back first. After the incident, aboard Enterprise, Sato feels that things are not right, particularly being the first time she used a transporter. After a visit to Doctor Phlox, she goes to sleep, hoping to feel better in the morning. She is wakened by an emergency call from the bridge having apparently overslept by three hours. On the bridge, Captain Archer informs her that Tucker and Ensign Mayweather have been taken hostage on the planet while retrieving the shuttlepod. Sato is unable to help, failing to understand the "simple bi-modal syntax" of the aliens. She is ordered to return to her quarters, where she sees her reflection in the mirror fade away and water passing through her hands when she takes a shower. Phlox still cannot find anything wrong, attributing Sato's experience to transporter anxiety. But only a little while later, she completely dematerializes. The crew begin to search for her, and she observes Phlox and Tucker scanning the ship for her cellular residue. She watches Archer speak with her father to inform him of her "death". In her wanderings, she hears and later encounters two strange aliens who are planting and arming suspicious devices throughout the ship. Unable to warn anyone, she endeavours to interrupt the devices. This eventually leads her onto an alien transporting device - which mysteriously takes her back to her initial away team return in the transporting room. She is disoriented, and concerned about the aliens, but Lieutenant Reed explains to her that she has been trapped for 8.3 seconds in the pattern buffer because of the storm, and that her recent experiences were only hallucinations. =Errors and Explanations= IMDB Factual errors # As Hoshi goes out of phase due to the transporter accident, she would be unable to walk or stand upon the deck plating she was no longer in phase with, or be able to breath or talk, as she would also be out of phase with the air as well. That would depend on the phase variance. According to the page 172 of the Starfleet Survival Guide, anyone in a phased state would only be unable to walk or stand upon the deck if their phase variance was 0.010 percent or greater. In addition, the air molecules would become phased when they cross the phase variance boundary Nit Central # Blue Berry on Sunday, November 24, 2002 - 8:00 am: How much anyone want to bet that the soles of her feet pass through decks? Free money if you trust TPTB to finally get that one right.:) Maybe Hoshi can fly out of the ship when it decelerates or accelerates. Gee I hope they don't have to change course at some time in the episode (unless they establish that Hoshi can breathe vacuum.:)) (In TOS they got it right with Kirk "floating" and Spock refusing to move the ship despite the Tholians.) Sparrow47 on Monday, November 25, 2002 - 10:37 am: So I came up with this rather random idea of why our heroes don't fall through the decks when they "dephase"- might it have something to do with the structural integrity field? How, you ask? Well, that I don't know, but I wanted to throw it out there...''Seniram 14:15, October 22, 2018 (UTC)''That could explain the Starfleet Survival Guide explanation (See the IMDB section above) # The Undesirable Element on Sunday, November 24, 2002 - 12:43 pm: Like Phil says (the only example I can think of is where he says that the Enterprise should be dark in "Timescape" since light photons shouldn't move), it's one of those nits that are necessary in order to make the story work. ScottN on Sunday, November 24, 2002 - 1:20 pm: No, time is actually moving. Remember, Data gives a time estimate for the warp core breach. Therefore, since photons always move at the speed of light relative to an observer, the lighting in the Ent-D is correct. Note that since the photon is its own antiparticle, it is even correct when time is running backwards. Dustin Westfall on Monday, November 25, 2002 - 11:39 am: I believe the nit wasn't that the light shouldn't be moving, but that the frequency of the light would be so high (while the speed remains the same relative to the observer, the frequency doesn't, if I remember correctly) that it would no longer be within the visual spectrum. ScottN on Monday, November 25, 2002 - 12:33 pm: That's true. There'd be a red or blue shift depending on the source. # ScottN on Thursday, March 20, 2003 - 8:53 am: I wonder if this is the first documented case of "Transporter Psychosis" that Reg Barclay was so worried about? LUIGI NOVI on Thursday, March 20, 2003 - 10:02 am: Transporter Psychosis occurs in people after they've been through a transporter, and Hoshi has no exhibited any of the symptoms in episodes after this one that were described in Realm of Fear (TNG). Moreover, since there is no known cure for it, it's unlikely that Hoshi has it. Lastly, it wasn't until 2209 that it was even diagnosed, and that's 57 years after this episode. # SMT on Wednesday, November 27, 2002 - 7:09 pm: I need a proper definition of 'biosigns'. We're told there aren't any on this planet, yet plainly visible at the entrance to the underground chambers are several green, living vines. Plants are biology as much as animals, yet apparently they aren't fit to be called 'biosigns' when scanned. Perhaps it refers to certain characteristics, such as brain impulses, perspiration, etc. # PaulG on Wednesday, November 27, 2002 - 7:36 pm: To save images of the ruins on the planet, Tucker appears to be using a camera with a flash. It actually resembles your run of the mill personal snapshot camera. Sorry, but I need an explanation. I would think they would have something a little more advanced, like a camcorder or a panoramic camera. For goodness sake, that thing looked out-of-date for today’s technology. Sparrow47 on Wednesday, November 27, 2002 - 10:19 pm: I also thought the imaging technology they had looked somewhat anachronistic, especially since it looked like one of them was holding the flash while the other took the actual picture. Uh huh. Seniram 14:15, October 22, 2018 (UTC) The internal workings could be more advanced than the design of the exterior – a good example would be digital radios with retro exteriors. # LUIGI NOVI on Wednesday, November 27, 2002 - 10:15 pm: When I first saw those aliens, I immediately thought they Xyrillians, then thought maybe they were Axanar, or perhaps the aliens that Arissa told Quark were cheating at Dabo in the beginning of A Simple Investigation (DS9). But I reviewed the shots of all those aliens from those episodes, and these guys looked only marginally similar to them. Yet I couldn’t help but get the feeling that we’d seen them before. Anyone else have a clue? Maybe the makeup artists just created a hybrid of different makeup appliances? Hoshi could have subconsciously created the appearance of the aliens in her mind, by combining characteristics frm some of the races encountered since Broken Bow. # Am I the only one who thinks Hoshi’s father was a bit dense when Archer was trying to tell him Hoshi was dead? Given that this was in Hoshi’s vision, is this how she sees her father? Dragon on Thursday, November 28, 2002 - 11:29 pm: Nope, you're not alone. I wonder if Hoshi's relationship with her father is strained for some reason, like Malcolm's with his father over his breaking the family tradition of Reed Royal Navy men. TJFleming on Friday, November 29, 2002 - 12:12 pm: Seemed to me Archer was trying his best not to tell him. About as articulate as his preface last week. margie on Thursday, December 05, 2002 - 12:11 pm: Mr. Sato may be dense, but I also had the thought (I do get those once in a while!) that perhaps his English wasn't that great. Maybe he didn't quite understand what Archer was saying. He also could have been distracted by something else and was not totally paying attention to the conversation. roger on Monday, February 01, 2010 - 5:54 pm: It seems plausible that Hoshi does perceive Archer as being inarticulate, but I thought of another explanation. If Hoshi's subconscious has her father acknowledging that she's dead, that would be too difficult for her--so in her mind, her father isn't receiving/noticing/understanding the message, thus not acknowledging it. Does that make sense? # Sparrow47 on Wednesday, November 27, 2002 - 10:19 pm: So, they couldn't take the shuttle up, hence the use of the transporter? Well, gee, why couldn't they have gotten in the shuttle pod, flown close to the surface until they were out from under the storm, and then gone back up? The storm could have extended too far for that to be a valid option. # Keith Alan Morgan (Kmorgan) on Thursday, November 28, 2002 - 5:07 am: Hoshi says she couldn't read the petroglyphs, except that some of the petroglyphs they showed looked like some you might find on Earth. There may have been subtle differences which made it harder for her to read them. # So was there really a Cyrus or was that just some name from Hoshi's fantasy? LUIGI NOVI on Thursday, November 28, 2002 - 5:54 pm: The latter. When Hoshi mentioned him after finally coming out the transporter at the very end, Trip didn’t know who she was talking about. Rene on Thursday, November 28, 2002 - 6:08 pm: Which makes sense, since Hoshi had to be told about him in her dream. # Sparrow47 on Thursday, November 28, 2002 - 6:30 pm: Okay, here's something else. When Hoshi's in the shower, and she watches the water passing through her hands, the camera cuts back-and-forth between a medium shot of Hoshi and a POV shot that's supposedly what Hoshi sees. Now, this may or may not be a nit, because my memory is a little fuzzy and I can't recall the specific details here, but from the angle that Hoshi is holding out her arms, when she looks down, certain... ahem... body parts should be in the shot. Yet, they're not. Mylan on Thursday, November 28, 2002 - 10:21 pm: Perhaps they were in the shot, but had completely phased out by the time she looked down :) # Hans Thielman on Saturday, November 30, 2002 - 8:43 am: I wonder if T'Pol in the actual Trek universe would be unfamiliar with Morse code. tim gueguen on Thursday, December 05, 2002 - 9:30 pm: Actually its unlikely anyone on the Enterprise would know Morse code, unless they're like whatshisface on Voyager and have an interest in 20th century or earlier technology. Morse code is rapidly becoming a thing of the past outside amateur(ham) radio. Josh Gould-DS9 Moderator (Jgould) on Thursday, December 05, 2002 - 10:24 pm: Well, I can believe that Hoshi would know it, since she's a linguist. However, whether Archer would is another question entirely. Of course, we must add the caveat that It Was All A Dream. Darth Sarcasm on Friday, December 06, 2002 - 9:48 am: There's little to suggest Archer is familiar with Morse code beyond SOS (which is familiar to laypeople today). When Hoshii began to spell out her name, Archer said it still sounded like Morse code, but he never said whether he understood it. On the other hand, Kirk and Spock were both familiar with Morse code a century later. TJFleming on Friday, December 06, 2002 - 12:58 pm: Low tech modalities such as Morse code or sign language will be around as long as there's a possibility of lost (or prohibited) voice communication. Merat on Sunday, December 15, 2002 - 2:28 am: Wasn't it mentioned on one episode that Archer used to be a Boy Scout? I know that they often learn Morse Code. By Sparrow47 on Saturday, November 30, 2002 - 10:18 am: Something I just caught onto. The shower area in Hoshi's quarters supposedly represents the genuine article in terms of its being "real," because Hoshi doesn't walk in there and go "what the..." So, for a ship that's supposedly tight on space, there's a lot wasted on that shower area. It’s probably a standard size. # LUIGI NOVI on Sunday, December 01, 2002 - 6:50 pm: At the end of Act 2, Hoshi, during her transporter dream/vision, permanently loses solidity while in the gym, and is unable to use the door controls. In the opening scene of Act 3, she tries telling T’Pol and Trip that she was "stuck" in there for hours. Um, not really. Just because she’s intangible doesn’t mean she’s trapped there. Quite the opposite. If her hand could pass through the door controls, she could’ve simply have passed through the door itself. Sparrow47 on Thursday, December 05, 2002 - 11:18 am: Well, she seemed to be selectively passing through things (hence her being able to fiddle with the alien gizmos or the power conduits from the inside), so she probably didn't want to get stuck halfway through the door. # ScottN on Thursday, December 05, 2002 - 12:03 pm:''The alien gizmos were "phased" like she was. 'Darth Sarcasm on Thursday, December 05, 2002 - 12:36 pm: I don't think so. There's no evidence that either the gizmos or the aliens were phased. They were able to walk on the warp core... the gizmos were able to be attached to the walls. I think they were simply cloaked. Sparrow47 on Thursday, December 05, 2002 - 2:36 pm: Hoshi was also able to (mostly) get her hands through one of the triggers (at least, I think that's what they were), so if they were phased, they weren't completely phased out of her range, so to speak.Darth Sarcasm on Thursday, December 05, 2002 - 3:24 pm: Except, again, there was nothing that I recall suggesting the triggers or the aliens were phased from the real world... only from Hoshi. ScottN on Thursday, December 05, 2002 - 3:48 pm: Except that nobody else (in the dreamworld) saw or heard anything out of the ordinary. And the aliens were mucking about with the friggin' WARP CORE!!! Somebody in Engineering should have seen them. Of course, cloaked would have been just as good. Darth Sarcasm on Thursday, December 05, 2002 - 3:54 pm: I said I thought they were simply cloaked, judging by the fact that they could walk on the warp core and that the gizmos could be attached to the walls or panels.' # ''Trike on Monday, December 02, 2002 - 12:36 am: The mirror in the shower room went from clear to fogged awfully quick. Some mirrors are like that! # Sparrow47 on Wednesday, November 27, 2002 - 10:19 pm: So, they couldn't take the shuttle up, hence the use of the transporter? Well, gee, why couldn't they have gotten in the shuttle pod, flown close to the surface until they were out from under the storm, and then gone back up? The storm could have extended too far for that to be a valid option. # Trike on Monday, December 02, 2002 - 12:36 am: The mirror in the shower room went from clear to fogged awfully quick. Some mirrors are like that! # Sparrow47 on Thursday, December 05, 2002 - 11:18 am: When Trip and Phlox track down Hoshi's "remains," Phlox scoops up a small sample and places it in an envelope, saying that her family would probably appreciate it. Wouldn't they want all the remains? And then, Phlox makes no move to clean up the rest of the goo, and there's no indication that Trip does, either! So, they're just going to leave it there and wait for it to be spot cleaned by the next evil repair station they dock with? They probably need something stronger to get it off the deck plates. # And speaking of this goo, if Hoshi's molecules were flying apart, how did this goo stay together in the first place? They were probably still close enough to each other for the transporter to lock onto. # Trip acts as if this is his first transporter experience. Funny, what about Dead Stop? Didn't he get beamed off the repair station twice? This is his first experience with being transported by the transporter unit on Enterprise – The Dead Stop beam-outs were performed by the station’s transporter, which is presumably more advanced than the one Enterprise uses! # roger on Monday, February 01, 2010 - 5:54 pm: When she's deactivating the devices, why doesn't she just carry them away? They may be too firmly attached. Category:Episodes Category:Enterprise